Flaws fixed in venerable 84-year-old method of measuring porosity

The error-prone estimation that is the current gold standard for characterising a material’s porousity could be replaced by a new piece of software that is far more accurate. The new method, already tested by 60 leading laboratories, increases reliability and reproducibility, and redefines the gold-standard of adsorption measurements – surface area calculations.

Surface area provides a good estimate of how much fluid fits into the pores of activated carbons, zeolites, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and other porous materials. Traditionally, scientists estimated these values by inputting experimental data into the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) equation, which dates back to 1938. However, the team of David Fairén Jiménez at the University of Cambridge, UK, discovered some disparities.